July has come and gone, and I can’t believe it’s already August. I’m actually looking forward to September because autumn just so happens to be my favorite season. Anyhoo, I digress. So, without further ado, here, in no particular order, are five great restaurants I visited in Milan and beyond (sempre Lombardia) this July.
La Baia
A Milanese mainstay, La Baia pizzeria has been using the same dough recipe since its 1969 inception. Leo Mattarese, who’s been working with the Luongo family (the owners) for over 40 years, kneads, stretches, and shapes the myriad pies then fires them in the dramatic wood-burning oven. What I love about this place is that you can zhuzh up your pizza with two toppings. I’m not talking about American-style two toppings, say, a mix of sausage and onions or half pepperoni and half mushrooms. You can order a single pie topped with half and half of any two pizzas on the menu – a welcome perk because the menu is so enticing that it’s hard to choose. So, we enjoyed several, like cacio e pepe with potatoes and carbonara with summer veggies. The pizza al padellino is insane – we got the burrata and prosciutto, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Nor can I forget the sfilatino, a long baguette-like dough stuffed with gooey cheese and topped with pancetta. Da bere? Instead of beer, wine, or cocktails—ginger ale! Yes, they have the ever-elusive (in Italy) ginger ale, and I couldn’t have been happier. website
Osteria alla Concorrenza
If you know me, you know I’m OBSESSED with this place. I can’t believe it’s just a ten-minute walk away. Anyhoo, this summer, the owners hosted a clever series of events called Una mano in Osteria for which they invited chef friends of all backgrounds from near and far to riff on their signatures inside the osteria’s compact square meter prep area, using the resources available: a microwave, meat slicer. and small bread-warming oven. I dropped in when Sayuri Tanaka and Shimpei Moriyama were the guests of honor. The couple oversees Il Sale restaurant at the Relais Poggio ai Santi in San Vincenzo, Tuscany (bucket list spot). From their menu, we went for tender roasted pork loin with miso, crostone with mentaiko roe, and potesala, a Japanese potato salad with smoked hard-boiled eggs. From the osteria’s pared-down menu, we availed ourselves of the crostone slathered with stracciatella and speckled with friarielli greens. Yum. website
Pastamadre
I know Pastamadre in Porta Romana appears regularly in my monthly dining recaps, but what can I say? I love it. My super summery July lunch included watermelon panzanella with Mantova melon and ricotta salata catanese and flat peach and tomato salad with sweet green peppers and rocket. For my main, I went for the pasta con le sarde, or pasta with sardines (see cover photo), fragrant with saffron and fennel fronds, just the right amount of briny from the fish, and texturally diverse from the pine nuts, raisins, and crispy bread crumbs. I was tempted by my fave, the spaghetti alla chitarra with yellow tomatoes, stracciatella, and Mazari red shrimp crudo, but I stuck with the pasta con le sarde as it had been on my mind all morning. I skipped my usual dessert, the luscious, almondy biancomangiare, to try a new gelateria. website
Materia
This Lake Como restaurant has become one of my all-around faves, though I don’t get there as much as I’d like since it’s in Cernobbio. If I lived nearby, I’d be dropping in at least once a week for an antipasto and pasta lunch. After seven years in the original location, the owners moved to roomier new digs on August 1st–still in Cernobbio. I popped in before the original outpost permanently shut its doors to try the Last Dance tasting menu, a compilation of 13 of chef Davide Caranchini’s greatest hits over the years. Standouts included the tagliatelle in bianco “sporca”; pignoli miso, pollen soup, marigold, and fake caviar; and a pecora and seaweed millefeuille. We added a tasting of the linguine with butter, agone garum, and amchoor–a signature that would have been blasphemous to forgo (when in Rome). Have to say, Materia is really one of the best restaurants in Italy, and it’s markedly more memorable and daring than many places that get all the hype. website
Lido 84
I’ve been wanting to dine at this Michelin-starred restaurant for ages, and we managed to get a July res all the way back in February. The weather was a bit finicky in the weeks leading up, but we lucked out: the day couldn’t have been more divine. We sat in the shade of white umbrellas as a light breeze fluttered, cicadas hummed, and Lake Garda’s gently lapping emeraldy, turquoise water glistened all the way to the horizon, touching the radiant blue sky (see below, after the food pic). Over the last few years, I attended chef Riccardo Camanini’s Identità Golose presentations, and I was really intrigued by his academic approach, so I couldn’t wait to experience the restaurant. The cacio e pepe “in vescica,” cooked in a pig bladder resembling an inflated balloon blew me away. The dish is based on an ancient Roman cooking technique, and it’s wild how he devised a formula to perfectly cook the pasta inside the bladder –emulsified sauce, nuanced flavor, al dente texture–without even taste-testing it before it hits the table. The bladder adds a smoky porkiness to the pasta, and I just can’t even imagine all the trial and error that went into its creation. Ingenious. Other standouts included the famous spaghetti with butter, and dried yeast, which had deep flavors and a lovely consistency, and the sweetbread in a sauce of honey, rum, and ancient mustard grains. A special meal on a special day in special company. website
